Landus Cooperative completes expansion

RALSTON — Landus Cooperative announced completion Monday of a $27 million project to increase soybean processing capacity by 50 percent at its SoyPlus manufacturing facility.

The expansion creates demand for an additional 6 million bushels of soybeans each year, for a total of 20 million bushels annually.

SoyPlus is a high bypass protein dairy feed ingredient used in dairy rations across the world.

The facility has created 11 new, full-time positions in Ralston.

Soybeans come from the cooperative’s membership of more than 7,000 farmers in Iowa and parts of Minnesota.

According to cooperative estimates, nearly 50 percent of all soybeans purchased from farmers this year at its nearly 70 grain locations will be processed into SoyPlus at the Ralston plant.

“We have the unique ability to purchase locally grown beans and share them with producers across the country and world in the form of dairy feed,” chief animal nutrition officer Mark Cullen said this week in a statement. “We take pride in our ability to turn our local commodities into something that serves agricultural communities globally.”

Due to strong domestic and international demand, the manufacturing facility had been producing at maximum capacity for more than a year.

The original plant operating in conjunction with the expansion allows for annual production of 575,000 tons, of which 15 percent is exported.

The cooperative has manufactured SoyPlus for more than 30 years.